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>>>good evening, at a time when so many people are still suffering, right now tonight more than one month after a monster storm hit a giant
population center
, today we learned some facts about how this earth is changing and how fast. for starters,
polar ice
sheets in
greenland
are melting at five times the pace, than just a few years ago. new research shows that
antarctica
is melting. while it takes a lot of ice to melt the
ocean levels
they say that is in fact what is happening. and they believe just an incremental rise in the
ocean levels
made the damage worse when hurricane sandy hit the
east coast
and took so much away from us. the big question is the future, of course, and a new kind of normal for all of those living along the water. it is where we begin tonight, our chief environmental affairs correspondent,
anne thompson
has more on what we learned.

>> reporter: well, the information comes from a group of international scientists, brian and shows we're living climate changes in
real time
. this july was the warmest month on record. and tonight, there is new information that reveals just how fast the world's
ice sheets
are melting. the numbers are staggering. 344 billion metric tons of ice melting in
antarctica
and
greenland
a year. the weight of more than a million
empire state
buildings, the information was published in the journal, from researchers who looked at the data gathered over the last 20 years. creating what they say is the most accurate picture of melting. in
antarctica
, the
east region
is gaining ice, but it is not enough to make up for the loss on the rest of the continent. in
greenland
, it is shown here in red and is losing ice five times faster than in the early '90s.

>>the faster speeds we're seeing in
greenland
are not going to slow down. that is not the way
ice sheets
behave.

>> reporter: the melting accounts for 20% of
sea level
rises in the past two decades, adding
11 mm
, it doesn't sound like much, until you consider it is like pouring in 26 lake tahoes.

>>greenland
has the most vast levels of ice. all told they hold hundreds of feet of
sea level
rises that is the worry, many of the

>> reporter: that is the worry, many of the world's cities are in the
cross hair
.

>>most of the people live in the coastal areas, where the ports are. they are at
sea level
. so even small level rises can displace many in those areas.

>> reporter: look at what happened on the
east coast
, this could be the impact of five feet of
sea level
rises, and could impact others in just a few centuries. today, new jersey and new york are still recovering from the punishing effect of sandy, a storm fuelled by higher seas. in
greenland
, this photographer used
time lapse
cameras to record the melting five years ago.

>>i want to
show people
the reality of what is happening.

>> reporter: what he found here is the subject of the documentary, "chasing ice".

>>and that effect, more ice is going into the ocean as it is speeding up.

>> reporter: confirmed by the results of today's study. now another report this week says
sea level
rises are happening 60% faster than the
united nations
predicted in
2007
. this is all critical information because more than half of all americans live within 50 miles of the coastline.

>>bracing bunch of numbers today,
anne thompson
leading us off tonight, thank you.